


Steve Keeps Lists

by mysweetadeline



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-05 18:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16372727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysweetadeline/pseuds/mysweetadeline
Summary: It starts as a treatment, because the walls of his cramped apartment are paper thin, the streets are never quiet, and he’s already gone through 4 inhalers in the last month.(Where Steve keeps a list of everyone he trusts, spanning from the First Avenger to Infinity War).





	Steve Keeps Lists

**Author's Note:**

> There's gonna be more than one chapter to this...
> 
> (I do not own Marvel or any of its characters).

1.

It starts as a treatment, because the walls of his cramped apartment are paper thin, the streets are never quiet, and he’s already gone through 4 inhalers in the last month.

 

Bucky had dragged him to one of the best pulmonologist medical centres in Brooklyn with Steve protesting the whole way there that there’s no way in hell that they could pay for it. 

 

“It’ll be okay, champ,” Bucky reassures as he drops him off at the shiny glass doors of the tall, imposing building.

 

It starts as a treatment, and it works. A way to calm him down after an asthma attack. His doctor is surprisingly young, pretty, and her hair is the colour of chocolate taffies. She gives him a newly minted inhaler and a series of breathing exercises. 

 

“Okay,” she says to him gently as she hands him a pen and paper, “Now, I need you to write  a list of all the people you trust.”

 

He’s still a little flustered by her presence, like he is with all ladies, but her smile is oh so sweet and encouraging that the answers come easily.

 

_ Bucky _ , he scribbles confidently on the textured paper - must be the expensive kind -  _ Mom _ .

 

He pauses, debates putting down his fifth grade home room teacher who defended him against the bullies without hesitation, unlike so many of the other teachers, but he decides he doesn’t know her well enough. He hands back the list. 

 

The corners of the doctor’s mouth turn down a little. She clears her throat and smiles again, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes like before. “Just two?” She asks, not unkindly but there’s something in her voice that makes Steve suddenly dislike her.

 

“Just two,” he says, hoping his voice is firm and doesn’t squeak up at the end like it usually does.

 

On the drive back, Steve contemplates confiding in Bucky about the list, but he looks over at him, his hair blown back and his hand floating carelessly on top of the steering wheel and Steve decides that maybe, he’ll keep this one a secret. 

 

It _ is  _ kind of pathetic, he acknowledges later, the way the two small words look in the corner of the long sheet of paper.

 

It starts with only two people. 

 

***

 

The list ends up helping. He takes it out to read at least once everyday and pinches the paper between his thumb and forefinger every so often. It’s a comforting notion. 

 

Winter dawns upon them, and a war is brewing beneath the surface. It’s a hard couple months, the air cold and unforgiving. Surprisingly, he doesn’t get sick, with only a couple bad days and coughs here and there.

 

His mom, however, hasn’t been able to get up from her bed in weeks.

 

She dies on the third week, quiet and painless.  _ Tuberculosis _ , they say,  _ she must’ve caught it in the ward _ . He couldn’t afford a proper burial, so Bucky helps him do it himself. The ground is like ice, the dirt frozen over with a thin sheen of frost layered on top.

 

It takes the three days, and at the end of the third day, Bucky’s hands are covered in blisters. 

 

They lift the cheap, wooden coffin into the air, the edge glimmering in the dying sun before they place her gently into the ground next to Steve’s dad. 

 

Two weeks later, when the daunting truth finally fully sinks in, he crosses  _ Mom _ off the list, his hands shaking so bad that the line looks more like a scribble.

 

There is just one, one person left.

 

***

 

“There’s a war coming our way, Ma,” he says as he sits by her grave, his small hand tracing the rusting tombstone. Three years had gone by quickly. “Bucky’s already in, I tried but they won’t let me.”

 

Steve frowns. “I’m gonna keep trying, though. It’s all I can do.”

 

He does try, and he succeeds. Somewhere along the line he meets Peggy, who’s strong and fearless and beautiful and everything that should make Steve reach for his inhaler but somehow, he feels at ease with her. 

 

It’s not long before her name appears, neat and precise, in ballpoint pen.

  
  


When he meets Howard, however, his instinct tells him to keep his distance. Because Howard’s a little too certain and his smile flashes a little too confidently, always seeming to know all the right answers. 

 

Steve decides to trust him, in the end, certainly not completely and mainly because of his own desperosity, but he trusts him enough all the same. 

 

_ Stark? _ appears on his list, moments before the serum, written lightly and carefully. 

 

***

 

He gains the physicality to match his inner determination, but he loses everything else. He loses Bucky first, an accident, but really it was his fault (it’s always his fault). Then he loses Peggy, and he knows this the second he kisses her before he jumps off the speeding car, he knows that he’s taking a one way trip.

 

And finally, after all the fights, the shaky plane, the blinding blue glow of the - , the _ ice _ , after it all, after waking up in the stale room with the radio playing the game from ‘41 and seeing the flashing lights and hearing the unfamiliar blare of noises, Steve,

 

Steve loses himself.

 

He lost all of them, and the scarring realization hits as he stares down at the list, which was carefully placed on his nightstand, the paper as stiff as metal and wrinkling at the edges. 

 

There’s no one left.  
  


2.

On the first week out of the ice, Steve stays in the recovery room at SHIELD. Not necessarily because he wants to, he really wants to get away, but because he doesn’t know what else to do. 

 

_ He’s in shock _ , he overhears one of the agents talking,  _ he has to crack eventually. _

 

***

 

On the second week, he moves into his new apartment. 

 

Though the tiny window in his bedroom, Steve can just see the the top of City Point and the grey sky encompassing it, so copious with fog that if he wanted, he could stare directly into the sun. 

 

The sight of the tall building makes him frown, it’s modern exterior a constant reminder of his outdated interior. Initially, SHIELD had offered to arrange a place for him in the compound but he immediately - and rather politely - declined. Steve had found the oldest apartment complex in Brooklyn, rented a one bedroom suite, and never looked back. 

 

Unfortunately, however, the address was coerced out of him from Nick Fury. “For your safety,” Fury had said, almost apologetically, his one eye flickering up at him. 

 

On an old, creaky desk Steve keeps two packs of spearmint gum, the oldest model flip phone he could find, and a crumpled photo smoothed into a gold plated frame, the black and white film so grainy he has to squint to make out the woman portrayed.

 

There’s a coat hanger next to the desk, and a scroll in one of the coat’s pockets. 

 

The apartment is small and the paint is starting to flake off the walls but Steve doesn’t care, it’s the closest he can get to his old apartment before the ice, before the war. 

 

So much has changed and at first, Steve tried not to change with it, wanting desperately to hold on to the familiarity of the past. He gave up eventually, but part of him will always wonder what could’ve happened happened if he never met Dr. Erskine that day, where he would be instead.

 

Definitely not here, stuck in the wrong time zone with a questionable organization watching his every move.

 

***

 

On the third week, he finds out Peggy is still alive. 

 

It’s Agent Hill who digs up her file for him, smiling carefully when she told him the news. He was halfway out the door almost before he heard her say -  _ don’t get your hopes up, she has dementia _ . 

 

He visits when he can, but sometimes, he can’t.

 

He goes to the gym instead. He punches and punches and punches until his hands ache and the punching bag breaks. 

 

The air is thick with the smell of an incoming storm, and when Steve steps out of the lobby of his apartment, he can barely see the grainy words marking the building across from him.

 

Subconsciously, his hands slip into his pockets to touch the familiar rough surface. He’s not quite sure why this is still a habit - everyone on the list is dead except Peggy, and his asthma cured along with 30 other of his diseases from the serum - but he does it anyways, now and then.

 

He’s on his fifth punching bag by the time Nick Fury arrives, and he’s out the door before he can move onto the sixth. 

 

\- The fights, the shaky plane, the blinding blue glow of the - , the _ ice _ . -

 

“Trying to get me back in the world?”, Steve is wary. 

 

“Trying to save it”, Fury is stubborn,  _ we need you, we need Captain America. _

 

The Avengers Initiative. Steve wants to scoff, but at the same time, he can’t walk away.

 

They fight, Loki’s ice eyes burn like fire into his, and they win but they’re not a team, not where Stark is arrogant and Thor is proud, Natasha is cold and Clint is distant. Where a scientist could become a raging monster in the matter of seconds.

 

They’re not a team, they can’t be, but Steve fights with them anyways.

 

( _ Captain America, pretending you could live without a war _ ).

 

3.

Eventually, he decides to get another apartment in Washington, DC. It’s more convenient this way as SHIELD decided to station him there, hotel prices are through the roof, and he enjoys the calmness of the state. 

 

Tony had helped him apartment hunt, picking one out in a quiet and modest neighborhood. The room is more spacious than his cramped room in Brooklyn, and overtime, Steve began to fill the emptiness. The bookshelf by the window now creaks with the weight of heavy and confusing history books, and next to the kitchen, there is a white decorative lampshade next to a brown couch. 

 

He had started another list, sometime in between all the chaos, to try and catch up on events he’s missed out on and all the pop culture references that for some reason, everyone uses. Tony contributed eagerly, Bruce made a couple suggestions, and even Natasha had casually mentioned that he’d never tried Thai food. 

 

“I’m glad we got paired together,” he told her once, choosing his words carefully, as they sat in silence on the quinjet. It had been one of their first missions together - just the two of them - after New York, and Steve was trying to break the ice. 

 

Natasha rolled her eyes at this, and at the time, he couldn’t tell if she’s teasing or just annoyed.

 

“Don’t get too excited Rogers,” she turned slightly away from him, “you’re just Clint’s temporary replacement.” 

 

It stung, just a little, but Steve brushed it off. “Is that what I am? Thought I was just some pity project,” he glanced over at her, only partially joking. 

 

“Yeah, she scoffed, meeting his gaze and this time, he can tell she was teasing. “Fury especially assigned me to be your personal, cultivated bodyguard to protect you from this scary, modern world. How lucky am I?”

 

He chuckled at that, shaking his head. “You, know, I still haven’t tried Thai food,” he said, his eyes flicking to hers.

 

Natasha raised her brows in slight surprised, and she quickly laughed, airy and uncaring, to cover it up. “You haven’t learned how to use emoticons either. Or abbreviations for that manner,” she smirked, “Your text messages are exceedingly bland.”

 

“Maybe you could teach me someday.” Steve was hopeful.

 

Still smirking slightly, she adjusted her gear, preparing for dispatch. “Maybe,” she said. 

 

***

 

“Nat,” he had carefully tested the name once, and he’s almost certain he sees her smile.

He sees her cry too, her little hand placed on Fury’s lifeless body.

 

Then, he sees her scared, because SHIELD has fallen apart.

 

***

 

Bucky is somehow still alive, his name crossed off what was decades ago, but Steve can’t bring himself to rewrite it. Because Bucky’s gone, his eyes cold and dark, and his mom is dead, he never fully trusted Howard, and most days Peggy can’t even remember his name.

 

But he has Natasha, and at Sam’s house, after Zola and SHIELD and Natasha’s shallow breaths against his chest, after she asks for his trust and he gives it easily, her name appears on the list. 

 

There’s one, one person now. 

 

***

 

_ It’s a strange world _ , Steve ponders this as he absentmindedly sketches in the soft glow of moonlight by Sam’s spare bedroom windowsill. Natasha’s already asleep, but Steve knows that even the slightest wrong movement could set her up and running. 

 

There is only one bed, and Steve had tried suggesting taking the couch before Natasha stopped him -  _ don’t be ridiculous, it’s big, we’ll both fit fine _ \- and clambered in without another word. 

 

The air is still and the stars shine bright in the darkening sky. The clock tick-tick-ticks closer and closer to midnight as his pencil scratches and scrapes the paper. 

 

“I’m with you ‘till the end of the line”, Bucky had said once and Steve had nodded, because the end of the line then just simply meant death, not a brainwashed soldier on a tireless hunt to kill the man lost out of time. 

 

It’s a full moon tonight, and Steve wonders if this is a sign, that things have finally come full circle. 

 

It’s  _ strange _ , where his once best friend can’t recognize him, where a next door neighbor can turn out to be someone else entirely, where the only safe place to go is the house of a man he’s met on the street, where the only person to trust is a spy whose job it is to tell lies. 

 

Natasha makes a soft noise in her sleep, and Steve looks over at her, her face set in a deep, determined frown almost as if she’s searching for something she cannot reach. 

 

He considers drawing her, her red hair darkening in the corners and her waist curving into her hip. She would find it though, because Natasha always has a way of finding things. 

 

He tucks the sketchbook away. 

 

The bed dips under his weight as he carefully settles in next to her. She’s shivering, just a little bit, and Steve places a hand on her shoulder, drawing her closer. They’ve done this before on missions, when the motel room SHIELD booked was too cold, or when the safe house didn’t have a heater. 

 

It’s different now, they both know it. 

 

She’s stopped shivering, but Steve suspects she was cold for another reason. 

 

There’s the sound of a crow cawing in the distant, and Sam’s light snoring can be heard down the hall. 

 

Steve stares up at the ceiling, and wonders how in the world “the end of the line” ended up here. 

 

He had drawn Brooklyn, the way he remembers it anyway. Before the ice, before the war, when the streets were quiet and the stores hummed with radio and the buildings were filled with trust. 

 

He trembles a little, and Natasha stirs. It’s comforting for him too, to touch another human being.

 

Because he had drawn Brooklyn, Brooklyn in flames. 

 

***

 

It’s Bucky who drags him out of the water, Bucky who once spent hours teaching him how to swim in the Glenwood public pool, and Steve feels something dangerous, something like hope because what if they can bring him back, what if he’s still in there. 

 

Sam decides to join him to search for Bucky, and Steve knows he trusts him.

 

His name appears under Natasha’s, but Steve has known he would write it the day they met in the park. 

 

He unfolds the list and stares at it, looking at the line through Bucky’s name, then folds it up again. 

 

_ Not yet, _ Steve is determined,  _ but soon.  _

 

It’s a grueling couple months, and he hasn’t heard from Natasha since they parted at Fury’s grave, and there are too many cold lead, too many days wasted. 

 

He’s almost relieved when he’s called in again for the Avengers. He missed feeling useful. 

 

He dusts off his suit, packs a bag, and slips the list in his coat pocket before setting off, feeling more certain and sure than he can remember feeling in a long time.

 

There are two, two people on the list now.

**Author's Note:**

> Drop a comment?


End file.
